Cross-cultural UX Research and Design Resources
Nowadays more and more products are designed for international audiences. Even if the product is used in one country — people still have multiple backgrounds that influence their expectations and perception of our product. So when designing these products it is so important not to stereotype, be mindful of our own biases and be culturally self-aware. There are multiple ways to behave and express yourself in different cultures, so it is crucial to try not to make instant assumptions on people’s emotions, motives and needs based on what we see and hear. Culture is a very complicated term that has multiple definitions and each person has a lot of layers that form their “culture”, and there are no ready-made best solutions and that is the amazing opportunity for UX Researchers to endlessly explore and learn.
Working on international projects and coming to Canada — a home for people from all over the world, I’ve always been fascinated with exploring more about different cultures. I’ve collected a list of resources to support my cross-cultural research practice, from insightful talks to books to online courses, and I am happy to share it with you.
📹 Videos
Here are the talks from different professionals in Cross-cultural Design and Research, that offer lots of valuable experiences, tips and real-world examples.
Designing for Global Audience by Chui Chui Tan
An amazing talk on how to design for global audiences by combining Market insights <- Behavioural insights <- Cultural insights, why it might be hard to practically apply different Cultural Dimension models in design, why it is better to look at “culture” not as a country, language or ethnics group — but as a combination of what it consists of, including social norm, environment, history, infrastructure etc. Chui Chui Tan introduces the Three Levels of Culturalisation that is a great structure to plan international design research and design localizations and shows a lot of examples of insightful cultural discoveries and how they impacted design decisions.
Build bridges, not walls — Design for users across cultures by Jenny Shen
An insightful talk on how cultural differences manifest in UX and UI Design. Jenny Shen shares how useful is Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model for localizing designs, why it is important to research local UI patterns and measure the data to discover local unexpected behaviour patterns.
The talk is full of real-world design examples, like the differences between Dutch and German travel booking forms, a replacement for the hamburger menu in Chinese apps, increasing conversion rates by increasing trust with German users and many more. Jenny Shen also shares key steps and valuable tips on doing cross-cultural User Research. I would also highly recommend reading/watching Interview with Jenny Shen on Smashing Magazine.
Cross Cultural UX by Will Sullivan
In this talk, Will Sullivan shares his experience of localization in BBG (Broadcasting Board of Governors) in more than 100 countries and 61 languages. He talks through the ways of how the company following UX Design Values&Approach of Empathy, Balance, Embracing Standards, Innovation and Rapid and Constant feedback in all the different countries. He shares the 10 key focus points in making this possible, that include Diversity, Color, Iconography, Typography, Lean testing and more, and shows examples of the challenges and best practices.
Cross-cultural UX by Zaid Al-Dabbagh & Andrew Peterson
The talk addresses the challenge of “Designing for an evolving audience that speaks different languages and comes from different countries” and at the same time “Ensuring you design is appealing, relevant and non-offensive to anyone”. Presenters share their experience in developing the refugee service portal and conducting research to learn more about the real needs of refugees coming to New Zealand. With this amazing example, they share the methods for this research, the challenges they faced and the discoveries they made that helped create a better service involving many unexpected collaborations.
📚 Books
Here are the books that offer a look at specifics of International User Research and Design, cultural models and digital regional specifics and tips from UX professionals all over the world.
A Pocket Guide to International User Research by Chui Chui Tan
A must-read guide for all who want to support designing for global audiences by doing international User Research. It covers the main benefits of doing international research (like best allocation of budget, time and resources, validating and clarifying stereotypes about countries, increasing local loyalty for your brand etc.), describes the main types of localization and provides lots of useful tips on where to conduct research in different parts of the world, how to understand local users and how to implement research findings. This Guide has lots of links to other useful tools and resources for international research to explore the topic deeper.
The Handbook of Global User Research by Robert Schumacher (Editor)
This Handbook is an amazing and very detailed resource for International User Researchers. It provides a step-by-step guide for managing the global research project, including engaging stakeholders, finding in-country resources, planning logistics, tips on analysis and presenting results and specifics of different research methods in application to global research. The Handbook combines valuable experiences and best practices of user researcher professionals from around the world, as well as insights into user research practices and user behaviour in specific countries.
Cross-Cultural Design for IT Products and Services by Pei-Luen Patrick Rau, Tom Plocher, Yee-Yin Choong
The book covers very practical aspects of designing for global audiences and localizing products. It goes through main localization types that we need to have in mind and make sure we research how to best approach them depending on the country: language, colour coding, icons and images, presentation formats and layouts and Information Architecture. It also offers methodologies and tips on cross-cultural research and important things to have in mind, like the fact that countries are not proxies for cultures, and measurement and concepts are not necessarily equivalent in cultures. Interesting real-world case-studies show how important cultural awareness and research is to make a successful product.
Universal UX Design by Alberto Ferreira
This book is a fascinating read to understand the complexity of perceptions and mental models all over the world. It provides lots of examples from both physical and digital worlds on how world-famous international companies approached local markets and why it was (or wasn’t) a success. It has a very practical overview of the Digital Portraits of different parts of the world and insightful dive-ins into cultural mental models based on their folk tales, concepts and metaphors, social values and so much more. It also describes multiple topics from a UX cross-cultural perspective, like usability patterns, cultural aesthetics, gender, VR, cognition etc. A great book that would make anyone passionate about universal UX Design.
🎓 Online courses
Courses are a great way to learn more about the existing concepts of cultural dimensions, approaches to cross-cultural communication and cultural intelligence. Though they are not specifically about Research or Design, I still think they are great starting resources to dive into the topic and form questions for further research.
Developing Cross-Cultural Intelligence by Tatiana Kolovou on LinkedIn Learning
The course gives high-level information on Edward T. Hall’s theory of cultural factors, explaining the 6 areas of cultural differences as a way to understand possible communication difficulties:
- Individual and Collective
- Direct and Indirect communication
- Status and equality
- Relationship vs. rules
- Risk and restraint
- Perception of Time
- Locus of control
The course gives examples of these differences in work situations and some localized commercials to see how brands are adapting their message based on the cultural areas. At the end of each lesson, you will find questions that would be beneficial to ask to learn more about where a person is in regard to the area spectrum.
The course is a good starting point for UX Researchers and Designers to bring awareness about possible cultural differences and spark interest for further research, for observing and asking questions.
Improve your Intercultural Competence by Purdue University on FutureLearn
The course tells about Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE Rubric, developed by The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) that has six key constructs of intercultural knowledge:
- openness
- curiosity
- cultural self-awareness
- cultural worldview frameworks
- skills of non-verbal and verbal communication
- skill of empathy
The course is offering lots of exercises for practicing own cultural self-awareness, the questions to ask yourself and reflect. That is highly beneficial for UX Researchers as it helps uncover our own cultural biases that might impact both the way we conduct research and the way we analyze the results and create recommendations.
Intercultural Communication by Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) on FutureLearn
The course explores how we may feel like “a fish out of the water” when we are finding ourselves in other cultures and how we all carry our “cultural baggage” — attitudes, judgements and expectations. Most of the time we are unaware of it, and the course helps us reassess and re-evaluate our assumptions and realize how many other values and ways of doing something exist. During the course, we analyze the case-studies of frustration and miscommunication happening in intercultural communications, that happened because of different traditions, expectations and perceptions of each other's behaviours. The course helps to explore our own “cultural identity”, that exists on many levels (nation, ethnic group, geography, social status, ideology etc.), and observe communication styles in other cultures.
The course is very useful for UX Researchers and Designers who work with colleagues from other cultures to build effective communication and better understanding.
💭 More about Cultural theories
- Edward T. Hall’s cultural factors theory
- Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model
- Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s dimensions of culture model
- Erin Meyer’s “The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business” book and the summary video by HBR
I am very passionate about the Cross-Cultural Research and Design and hope these resources will motivate more and more people to implement it. I am always happy to discuss it more and learn about new resources and examples, so please feel free to share and reach out! Thank you so much for reading!
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to improve your skills in User Research, then consider to take the online course User Research — Methods and Best Practices. Alternatively, there is an entire course on Usability Testing which includes templates you can use in your own projects. Lastly, if you want to brush up on the basics of UX and Usability, you might take the online course on User Experience. Good luck on your learning journey!
